


I Am My Father, I am My Mother, I Am Neither

by thetitanwar



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Gen, but also a lil fluffy if u squint rlly hard, i mean A N G S T, saly is mom of the year thats facts on facts on fax machine, thye played rock paper scissors and percy always loses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27129526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetitanwar/pseuds/thetitanwar
Summary: Percy needs to have a chat with his mom, and she has so much to tell him. Maybe it is exactly what he needed, all this time, he just needed Sally again.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	I Am My Father, I am My Mother, I Am Neither

On the last night of the summer, Percy watched the bonfire’s flames envelop the sacrifice he made. The smell lingered, sweet and smokey. He couldn’t help but think of Poseidon, but he had pushed thoughts of his father to the side when he sat to eat. Annabeth kept breaking the rules for the past few years, sitting at his table. Now, he slid into place with her cabin, and stayed until Chiron gave him a stern look, barely opening his mouth to warn Percy of consequences for breaking the rules. He’d returned to his table, finished his meal on his own, and ended up in his cabin. 

He was alone again, and the rushing scent of the beach flooded his nose. The trickling fountain in the back of the room turned to white noise, and his thoughts turned to Poseidon again. His feelings for the god had been complicated at best, resentful at worst. It was almost as though Percy would have to thank him for everything; the powers, the chance to bear the curse of Achilles and be invulnerable, for meeting Annabeth. All good things in their own right, but none that weren’t tainted by death, expectations, and the deep swirling sea of pain. Without Poseidon, his mother never would have had to stand Gabe, she never would have had to deal with dozens of schools that cost her enough to rent out an apartment twice the size. Without Poseidon’s divine intervention, she never would have had to handle Percy, and everything that came with him. 

The good things outweighed the bad. In reality, just having the mortalized ichor meant certain death. Percy was perfectly aware of his namesake. Sure, it bode well for the shot at a happy ending, but at what cost? Making it to twelve years old was unlikely, sixteen a miracle, and now eighteen; a statistical anomaly, a walking corpse. By any and all accounts, he should be an empty grave, a mangled corpse in a closed casket, the remnants of a funeral pyre scooped into an urn and sitting on his mother’s mantle. A name to be whispered, but forgotten by everyone once the last of his friends joined him in the Underworld. Yet, there he sat, muscles in a constant burning ache, brow stuck furrowed, jaw clenched so often he forgot how to relax the muscle. What did his father get him? Pain. Poseidon got him pain, loss, fear, longing. Percy can’t remember the last time he felt safe. Even with Camp HalfBlood’s magical barrier back in effect, he remembers when the monsters found their way in. He remembers the dead, the friends he lost over the years.

At twelve he thought he lost his mother. Some moments, right as he wakes up, he forgets that he got her back. For those split seconds, she is still dead, and the fear takes him again and fills his throat. He stuck a photograph into the bed frame above his bunk. It is him and Sally, Percy a half foot taller than her, grey streak meshing into the rest of his black hair. His mother looks the same, just a few more lines in her forehead. Her hair is pulled back, curls splaying out behind her head. Their eyes both look weary, the years taking a toll on them, but they’re beaming. His mom smiles from ear to ear, arms wrapped around Percy in the most motherly way. Her expression overflows with pride, and he looks relieved. The background is Montauk on a clear day, the photo taken over fall break. In those moments when he forgets, he wakes up to that picture. It helps him let go of the fear. 

At fourteen, he held the sky in lieu of a titan, to spare a friend. His muscles always ached from it, and his hair showed the stress since then. He realized somewhere during the time the clouds rested on his shoulders, that he needed Annabeth so badly that he would hold the world up for her.

At sixteen, he lowered himself into the Styx, feeling his mortality slip away. He made himself, for all intents and purposes, immortal. Becoming impervious to weapons, just to save his camp. He fought friends. He fought  _ kids _ , ones that were justified in their anger. Percy hated how much he understood them, how much their anger matched his. Especially as he grew older, Percy knew exactly how they had felt. The gods only wanted a disposable errand runner, a replaceable valet that could be bred anew. Every word they said about caring for their children burned hotter in his veins than venom. None of them cared about their children. They valued the more talented ones. Sometimes, when Percy was truly slipping deeper into a void, he wanted to believe them. Truly, he always wanted to believe them, but only then would he ask for something, anything, to show him that the gods cared for their children. Poseidon spouted words of love for Percy, but only once did he ever show up. He didn’t even truly show up, his voice simply emanated from the fountain in his cabin and said ‘I’m here’. 

At sixteen, he saw all of his dead friends. His voice had been hoarse for weeks, spending nearly a full year in mourning. The names still hung in his mind, and he began scratching them into stone during sleepless nights. He needed them to be remembered, he wouldn’t let their memory fade. In the wake of the dead, of the loss that could have been avoided if the gods simply tried  _ at all _ , they offered him immortality. The gods, the same who ignored their own children, offered him a spot at the table for saving them. Instead, he made them swear that they would step up, at least let their children know they were theirs. Instead, they broke that oath as well. 

At seventeen they asked him to save the world again. He lost his memory, was used as a pawn, and thrust under the same pressure just one year after he lost a hundred people to the gods’ own entitlement. He trekked through the deepest depths of hell, in the den of newborn monsters. He was forced to his worst; they woke him up to his power to bend the _ blood _ in someone’s body to his will. They awake a beast in him, an unbridled threat. The fear in Annabeth’s eyes had brought him back from his rage. The fear from his best friend, who the gods also damned to the same fate, was what kept him on a leash. The fear of the gods trying to use his lethal ability to their advantage scared him as much as the realization that he was capable of it. He lost even more people that year.

Poseidon had set him up for a life of untapped power, and unending tragedy. 

When Percy returned home for the fall, he couldn’t sleep for the first few nights. Sally noticed, as she always did, and decided to join him in the early hours of the morning. Percy knew that she didn’t know the worst of his quests. It was an uncomfortable agreement. He couldn’t handle the thought of her knowing that he could control a blood river, the horror that would overcome her. There were so many things left unsaid, regardless of if he wanted to express them. Either they were too painful, or he was too worried of how she would react.

They sat on either end of the couch. Percy remembered going with his mom to a furniture store one weekend, and how her eyes sparkled when she finally got a big couch. She loved the thing more than almost anything else. It was the first big purchase she made for herself in Percy’s whole life. She did it by herself, and Percy swelled with pride when she nearly skipped out of the shop.

Now, the couch wasn’t washing over his feelings with a sense of pride. His ribs felt just as heavy as before, his lungs as paper thin as ever. His mother’s eyes looked tired, but just as alert. She was analyzing him before he even spoke, and Percy was afraid of what she knew. How many nightmares had she heard me crying from? Some nights he awoke to her in his doorway, his throat sore from yelling. They never talked about what he yelled in his sleep, she would just lay next to him and pull his head into her chest, whisper-singing an old song she loved in a cracked tone. 

Percy opened his mouth to speak; to say anything about the past six years. Instead, what left his mouth felt like a much older question.

“Did you love him?”

They had this conversation before, in passing, but this felt different. From the way Sally let a moment of silence pass, she knew it too.

“Yeah,” She said, voice raspy from not talking in hours, “In a way.”

Percy’s eyebrows crinkled, and he took a breath in to start again. Instead, his mom shook her head. He closed his mouth, letting her speak again.

“He made me feel like I could fly. I didn’t know how much I could love someone, so it seemed like I loved him as deeply as someone could,” She set her mug of tea on a coaster, pushing it onto the coffee table so it wouldn’t spill, “But I was wrong. It was like a summer love for any average teenager. I was young. He was great at letting me think he loved me. Sometimes I feel that he still does.”

“He’s said he does,” Percy’s words come out soft. His mom lets out an airy laugh that isn’t quite a laugh, more of a sigh of knowing. She smiles, just barely.

“I believe he thinks that, but that was the thing about him. There were many things that were wonderful, but he lacked something I needed. Stability. He gave me great memories, but something in me always knew it would be a blip in time. He wouldn’t stay long, and he always let me know that. He was quite honest, and I was surprised how easily I believed the truth. But the truth meant I saw every inch of bad.”

Sally watched him for a minute, the silence falling between the two. Hearing his mom acknowledge that Poseidon was a decidedly imperfect guy was comforting. The edge in her words as she noted her knowledge of him almost shocked Percy. He rarely heard the smooth, sly disdain that tinged her words. She kept him from most of that, or it was reserved for those who hurt them. Hearing his mother regard Poseidon as one of those people, the feeling wrapped around him in an icy cold wave.

“You knew?”

“I knew a lot of horrible things about him. Mostly, I found them out on my own. He tried to deny a lot, but when every myth tells the same thing, it is kinda hard for him to lie,” The humourless laugh left her, “Him coming clean bought him some time with me. I had some power in our relationship, looking back on it. Over everything, though, I’m glad it happened.”

Percy felt the resentment flare in his stomach again. It clawed out his throat before he could stop it, “But him showing up meant decades of pain. Everything since him has done nothing but hurt you. Everything he gave you caused trouble.”

His mother’s eyes hardened in an instant. A chill ran down his spine. She looked stronger, and part of him recognized that look in himself just before he lost control. His mom had a stronger hold on hers, the look in her eyes held less heat than his. It was the look of someone to be feared, most of all respected. Sally truly was as strong as the ocean, just as powerful as the tides. Seeing this from her, even though unnerving to be directed at him, gave him a sliver of comfort. He was as chaotic and volatile as his father, but the control came from his mom. The ability to reign it in was from her. Seeing that piece of her in himself made the resentment loosen its hold on his stomach.

“Don’t say that,” Her words were the warmest ice he’d ever felt, “Don’t ever say that. A lot of bad has happened, sure, but a lot worse hasn’t.”

“Why? Don’t you ever miss him? You loved him, once, before everything went to shit.” His words sounded small, like he was a little kid again asking if he was in trouble. Percy noticed his mom roll her shoulders, not chiding him for swearing in front of her. He mentally noted to apologize for swearing later.

“Never. Everything good about him, I still have it. He gave me you,” Her words weighed more than the sky, “Any part of him that I could miss is in you, Percy. You got the best of him, you’re the most amazing gift I could’ve gotten. Even with all the shit we’ve dealt with,” Percy sucked in a breath at her deciding to swear, too, “I wouldn’t trade you for anything. You were worth all of it. You were born, and in that moment I knew that nothing would stop me from protecting you. You’re my son, you are mine. He gave me you, but you’re more than he could ever be.”

The pipes rumbled quietly.

“Don’t let him hear that, we may need a plumber.”

Sally’s soft smile returned, but her tone didn’t change, “He hasn’t done anything for you except give some DNA and take credit for you being yourself. I raised you, I watched you grow into exactly who I knew you could be.”

Percy’s throat itched with the building tears. 

“I’d do anything for you, Mom.”

“You came back for me once, and I’m still trying to thank you,” Her voice dropped to a whisper.

This was the topic they never discussed. His quests. Even referencing her time in the Underworld felt like the most open they had been. The look in her eyes showed that she knew how much he had done for her.

“I had to.”

“No, you wanted to. You were a kid, and you did more than a million men, than a god,” Sally said. These were words that Percy knew she had saved for years. They cradled his heart and eased the pain threaded around his fingertips.

“He’s real bad at being a dad.”

“Don’t ever give him credit for what you’ve accomplished,” The words flew out of his mother with such fire that they stuck behind his eyes, “His blood gave you the worst start, yeah, but you are so much more. You beat all the odds, Perseus.”

_ You beat all the odds, Perseus. _

Percy nearly leapt across the couch, pulling his mother into his arms. He held her so close that her shoulder dug into his chest, and he buried his face into the crook of her neck. Her hand cradled the back of his head, arms holding him just as tightly. The embrace nearly hurt, but it quieted the rumbling in his chest.

“We beat all the odds, Mom.” His words were muffled by her robe. Percy didn’t have to see her to know the cracked smile she had. 

“You don’t have to tell me all of it,” His voice was soft again, fluttering around his hair in that way that she would sing him to sleep, “But at least believe me when I say I see it. You won, over and over again.”

“We did, mom,” Percy said. His voice cracked, and he realized he was crying.

“We did, dear, we did,” She was whispering now. The hug still tread the line, barely escaping being painful, but Percy wouldn’t let go, “Can you try to sleep tonight?”

“Can you stay beside me?”

“Of course, Percy,” She pulled back from the embrace enough so he had to look at her, “Always.”


End file.
